


This Looks Bad

by Lauralot



Series: Alexander Pierce should have died slower [15]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Deaf Clint Barton, Depression, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Non-Sexual Age Play, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sign Language, Wheelchairs, internalized ableism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 10:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4217367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauralot/pseuds/Lauralot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint gets stabbed by a clown.</p><p>It's not nearly as funny as one would think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Looks Bad

**Author's Note:**

> This installment is very strongly influenced by Matt Fraction's _Hawkeye_ comics, especially issues 15 and 19 of his run. There will be partial spoilers for the series within this fic, although certain elements and the timeline have been altered.

**“Okay...this looks bad.”**

— Clint Barton, _Hawkeye_ #1, Matt Fraction

_Hello_ , Bucky signs to Hawkbear.

Hawkbear doesn’t answer. 

Natasha said Clint hasn’t been answering a lot either, not since she’s been staying at his place. He can still speak, according to her, but he doesn’t feel up to it most of the time. When she’d said that, Bucky thought back to his half-remembered first days at the tower. It had been so hard to make all the thoughts in his head come out as words. The strain of following a conversation made him sleepy. And he could _hear_ the people he was talking to.

Clint can’t hear. Not anymore. 

Bucky stares at the bears sitting on his bed. Bucky Bear is definitely coming with him to see Clint. He’ll be needed for moral support. But Bucky can’t bring all of the other bears. Natasha says Clint can kind of follow one on one conversations, but too many people around confuses him. Too many bears would probably do the same. 

Hawkbear might cheer Clint up. Clint had been so happy when he found T-shirt stands with Hawkeye merchandise. For Halloween, he’d been planning on dressing Tasha up as himself before she saw the bow and insisted on being Princess Merida. 

But Natasha said that Clint’s mad at himself right now. He could be just as mad at Hawkbear. Especially since Hawkbear didn’t get his ears hurt like Clint did. Maybe he won’t want to see Hawkbear at all. 

Bucky wonders if Tony can make bear hearing aids for Hawkbear. 

Bear Widow would make Clint smile, Bucky’s sure. But then Hawkbear might be lonely without her, since Bear Widow’s his best friend. And it’s not like Bucky can leave Red Panda here for Hawkbear to snuggle up to, either. Natasha hasn’t been in the tower for a week, and Bucky doesn’t know if there are any stuffed animals at Clint’s building. He has to bring her Red Panda, or he’d be the worst friend ever. 

“Hey Bucky,” Daddy says. He’s standing in the doorway, ready to go. Daddy’s clothes look ironed—he irons everything, even T-shirts and jeans—and his hair is combed all neat. But he looks tired. Everybody’s looked tired all week, ever since they heard about Clint. “Need help with your shoes?” 

Bucky hasn’t put his shoes on yet, let alone tried to tie them. He looks back at the bears gathered on the bed. 

“I was gonna bring Bear Widow to see Clint?” It comes out like a question. Maybe Clint won’t want any bears at all. Maybe he’ll think it’s stupid. 

But Daddy’s smiling when Bucky glances at him. “Good idea. I bet he’s missed your bears. Get your shoes, okay?” 

First Bucky moves Hawkbear so he’s sitting between Thor Bear and Captain Ameribear. They can make anybody feel better. Then he puts on his shoes—purple Converse, Clint’s favorite color—and gathers up Bucky Bear, Bear Widow, and Red Panda as Daddy ties the laces. 

“Ready?” 

Bucky nods, shifting the stuffed animals to the side so he can have a hand free to hold onto Daddy’s. 

“All right. Let’s get going.” 

*

What happened was that Clint owned a building Bucky didn’t know about.

No, that isn’t really the reason that Clint got hurt. Bruce said the building was one that Clint lived in before Tony made places in the tower for everybody. Clint bought the building because the owners wanted all the people in it to move out so they could sell it, and kept making the rent more and more. Clint hadn’t liked that, so he paid a lot of money to make sure everybody could stay. 

“Clint has money?” Bucky had asked. They’d all been gathered in the kitchen so Bruce could tell them what Natasha had said. Everybody looked pale. Bucky had felt pale too, but also confused. Last week Clint walked into the playroom in a pair of pants so old, the drawstring broke and they fell off. How could he buy a whole building? 

“Nat said he got the money from his brother.”

Bucky hadn’t known that Clint had a brother either. 

Clint was already living with the Avengers when he bought the building, but on some days and nights Clint would go see all the apartment tenants to make sure everything was okay and everyone was happy. Bucky had known that Clint wasn’t always at the tower some nights, but he hadn’t realized it was because he was busy being a landlord. Daddy said Bucky wasn’t a bad friend for not knowing because Clint didn’t talk about himself very much. Bucky isn’t sure if Daddy knew. 

Clint’s brother, who is named Barney but who is not a creepy dinosaur, came to visit after Clint bought the building. At the same time, the people who wanted to buy the apartments before Clint got them hired a clown to clear the place out. Not a funny clown, like the ones at the circus. An assassin who dressed up like a clown instead of wearing black leather like the Winter Soldier used to. 

Clint and Barney tried to keep the clown and the other people from hurting anyone, but Barney got shot and the clown stabbed Clint in the ears with two of his own arrows. That’s why Clint can’t hear anything now. He was completely deaf at first, but Natasha said in past few days the swelling in his ears had gone down, so now he can hear a very little bit. The doctors said he probably wouldn’t get anything more back without hearing aids, and even those wouldn’t completely restore it. 

Happy pulls the van to a stop. It takes Bucky a second to realize that they aren’t waiting at a stop sign or red light; they’ve parked. He glances around. This isn’t like any of the neighborhoods he’s ever been to with the Avengers before. This looks more like the sort of place Bucky walks through when he goes to see the Commander. What’s so special about a building here? 

Bucky Bear has some ideas about what the apartments could be used for, but before he can list the options, Daddy’s reaching over to unbuckle them. Daddy and Bucky are on either end of the backseat, with Bear Widow, Bucky Bear, and Red Panda between them. The stuffed animals are all sharing a seat belt, which Daddy says is perfectly safe because it’s only humans that aren’t supposed to do that. “Ready?” Daddy asks. Sam, Tony, Bruce, and Happy are already out of the van.

Bucky nods, but he can’t keep from twisting at the hem of his shirt. It’s a Starbucks T-shirt, because Clint likes coffee and Bucky likes mermaids. Somebody gave it to Clint a while ago, but Clint doesn’t get his coffee from Starbucks, so he gave it to Bucky. 

Daddy gives his hand a squeeze. “Don’t be nervous, Bucky. Clint’s still the same person. He’ll want to see you even if it’s harder to talk now.” 

Bucky feels almost carsick at those words. It’s not that he thinks Clint is going to act any different or hide from all his friends forever. It’s that an assassin made Clint deaf. Maybe Clint won’t want to be around assassins anymore, Bucky included. 

But Daddy has enough to worry about, so Bucky just smiles a little and nods, scooping up the animals before he steps out of the van. 

“—have a whole research center devoted to assistive tech,” Tony is saying. He looks happy. “Hell, I could code real time speech to text holographic captions for the tower in my _sleep_ , and that’s just to spare JARVIS the conscious effort. I’m sure he could—”

“Sounds great, Tony,” Sam says, but he looks more serious than excited. “He’ll probably appreciate that. But he’s been through a lot lately, so don’t treat him like a science experiment, all right?” 

Sam’s been talking to them all week about how to act when they’re visiting Clint. Some of the veterans he’s worked with lost limbs or their eyesight during their service, so he has experience with this kind of process. He’s never said if any of the people he helps are deaf, but IEDs and guns and stuff are really loud. Bucky wouldn’t be surprised. 

Sam says that they’re not supposed to dance around the fact that Clint can’t hear, but at the same time, to respect his wishes if he doesn’t want to talk about it. If he can’t understand them, they’re not supposed to yell, but to ask if there’s anything he wants them to do to make themselves easier to understand. They’re not supposed to say it’s awful that he can’t hear, and they’re not supposed to say that God works in mysterious ways or that this is a blessing in disguise or anything like that. Most of all, they’re supposed to let Clint direct the conversation, and if he doesn’t want a conversation today, they’re not supposed to push it. 

Bucky tries to think back to how HYDRA talked to him at the very beginning, when he didn’t have an arm. He concentrates so hard he almost bites through his lip, but he can’t remember anything. 

Bucky Bear says that’s probably better. 

Bucky was too busy concentrating to catch what Tony said in reply. Daddy still has his hand and he’s guiding Bucky inside and to the stairs. 

There are a lot of stairs. “How does Clint’s brother get up here?” Bucky asks, remembering the wheelchair. 

“There was an elevator at the end of the hall when we came in,” Bruce explains. “You’ll be able to see it when we get to his floor.” 

Bucky thinks of the clown and the people who hired him. They probably still want the building. “What if there’s a fire?” 

“There won’t be,” Daddy says, his voice hard. It isn’t the kind of hard like when Bucky says something to accidentally make him upset. It’s more like the way he sounds before missions. Protecting this building will probably be the Avengers’ next job. 

Bucky isn’t sure why it wasn’t an Avengers’ job to begin with. 

The door is wide open. Bucky stiffens, thinking of intruders and bad clowns, but he relaxes before Daddy even seems to notice. Clint can’t hear a knock on the door, and maybe opening doors isn’t easy for someone who isn’t used to a wheelchair . 

He follows Daddy inside the apartment without dragging his feet, and then walks right into Tony’s back, because Tony’s suddenly stopped walking. So has Daddy and everyone else. And because they’re all in front of him and whatever they’re looking at must be lower than their heads, it takes Bucky a second to figure out what’s wrong. 

The first person he sees is sitting to the side of whatever they’re all staring at, in a wheelchair. Barney. Bucky thinks he would know him even without the wheelchair; his hair is dark red, but his face looks a lot like Clint’s. He’s even giving all of them the same confused look that Clint usually has before he says _Aww, no_. 

Bucky shakes his hand free of Daddy’s and steps around Sam to see what’s going on. 

There’s a couch and a familiar man sitting on it. He’s in a dark hoodie and dark jeans, and he’s wearing sunglasses even though he’s inside. His face above and below the left lens is scarred, and that’s when it clicks in Bucky’s mind. 

Nicholas J. Fury. His last daddy showed him a picture of the man because he was one of the asset’s targets. A target to be eliminated, not captured and interrogated. 

The asset shot him. He went to Captain Rogers’s apartment and Nicholas J. Fury was there and the asset had looked through the window at the Captain’s eye line and used that to determine where Nicholas J. Fury was standing—it wasn’t bad it wasn’t his fault he didn’t have a choice Daddy says so the doctors say so everyone says so and he was perfect, Daddy’s perfect little snowflake for completing his mission, he _was_ —and he shot him and Nicholas J. Fury died. He _did_. The asset never, ever failed a mission before Captain America and that wasn’t really failing because Captain America was Steve Rogers and that mission was _bad_.

Nicholas J. Fury was dead. But Nicholas J. Fury is sitting on the couch. 

Bucky only realizes he’s yelped because everyone turns to look at him. Even the dead man. His heart is too loud in his ears and his throat is dry and the room is hot and small and Bucky runs, spins around and dodges Daddy’s arms and sprints back into the hallway, taking the stairs two at a time down until he can huddle in the corner on the landing below Clint’s floor. 

He buries his face against Bucky Bear, squeezing tight onto the other toys. His heart is still fast, but not so loud that he can’t hear the rush of footsteps toward the stairs. 

Once they reach the stairs, though, there are only two people walking down to him. Bucky Bear says it’s Daddy and Sam, and Bucky recognizes their footsteps. 

“Hey Bucky,” Daddy says.

Bucky doesn’t move, doesn’t answer. He’s trying his very best to pretend he doesn’t exist, and that’s hard enough with no blankets to hide under. 

“What’s wrong?” Daddy asks. Bucky hears him sit down close by, but he doesn’t reach out. Bucky can see a sliver of the floor between the toys and his legs, and Daddy’s hand slides into that space. He doesn’t touch Bucky. He just waits in case Bucky wants to hold onto him. 

Bucky wants to grab Daddy’s hand, to hide in his arms and then bury his face against Daddy’s shoulder, all safe and protected. But it’s too dangerous to move. 

“Are you worried about—” Daddy begins, but then he’s quiet. Sam must have given him a look. People aren’t supposed to suggest things Bucky might be scared about, because then he _is_ scared of them, whether he was before they were mentioned or not. 

“What’s the matter, Bucky?” Sam asks. “We’ll try and help if you let us know.” 

They shouldn’t be trying to help him. Everybody should be running away. Bucky should have run all the way out of the building before he stopped, but he got too scared. “I shot him,” Bucky whispers. They all saw Nicholas J. Fury. Why aren’t they frightened? 

“Fury?” Daddy asks. His hand moves then, squeezing Bucky’s knee. “It’s okay, Bucky. You weren’t yourself. Everyone knows that. Fury isn’t mad at you.” 

“I’m mad as hell,” says a voice that must be Nicholas J. Fury. “Just because I’m not out for revenge, don’t expect me to shrug off an attempt on my life.” 

Over Bucky’s whimper, he thinks he can actually hear Daddy glaring. 

“You’re the one who wanted me to be honest,” says Nicholas J. Fury. 

“Bucky.” As Sam speaks, he cuts off a deep intake of breath from Daddy that was probably leading into a very long lecture. “You’re not in trouble, I promise. No one is going to punish you. We know that you didn’t want to hurt anyone, and no one is going to make you try and hurt Agent Fury again now, all right? Now why don’t we go back to the apartment and see Clint, okay? You don’t have to talk to Fury or sit by him if it makes you upset.”

Bucky shakes his head. 

“Steve and I will be right with you the whole time.” 

He shakes his head again. 

“I know you’re scared, but you don’t need to be.” 

“You’re supposed to be scared of ghosts,” Bucky whispers. Why don’t they know that? They’ve seen Scooby-Doo. 

“Ghosts?” Sam repeats. Bucky thinks he can hear Tony laugh quietly. “Do you think Fury’s a ghost?” 

Bucky tries to nod. It doesn’t work very well with his head on the bear resting on his knees. Didn’t they know that the asset shot Fury? They _have_ to know that; Daddy was there when it happened. Unless someone took their memories too... 

But before Bucky can panic over memory-stealing ghosts—at least twice as bad as regular ghosts—Daddy’s speaking, still squeezing Bucky’s knee. “Buck. No, Fury’s not a ghost, I swear.”

Daddy wouldn’t lie. Bucky shifts his head up very, very slowly, just risking a one-eyed peek over Bucky Bear’s ear and toward the stairs. Sam and Daddy are sitting to either side of him. Bruce and Tony are seated on the stairs, a little bit back. At the top of the staircase is Clint’s brother, Barney. 

And next to him is Nicholas J. Fury. 

Nicholas J. Fury doesn’t _look_ like a ghost. He’s not see-through or pale, and he has legs. Bucky’s never seen a ghost with legs before. And Daddy doesn’t lie. But the asset shot him and the asset never, ever messes up. Nicholas J. Fury can’t be alive. 

“Zombie!” Bucky yelps, and it’s only Daddy’s hand grabbing onto his arm that keeps him from running away. 

“I’m going to kill Clint for showing him Dawn of the Dead,” Bruce mutters. 

“Be a welcome change from all the other reasons people are trying to kill us,” Barney says. 

“Bucky.” Sam’s hands are on Bucky’s shoulders. He’s still squirming, struggling to get away, but Daddy’s got both his arms now and he can’t leave the stuffed animals here to get their brains eaten. “Bucky, listen. Fury didn’t die, all right? The doctors at the hospital pretended that he died so you wouldn’t try to kill him again. That’s all.” 

Bucky shakes his head. His throat feels so tight but that doesn’t stop words from spilling out. “I shot him I did the mission was a success I don’t make mistakes ever I _shot_ him he _died_ I succeeded—”

“Buck.” Daddy moves so fast, releasing Bucky’s arms and grabbing him around the waist instead, one hand moving up to stroke at Bucky’s collarbone. He can feel Daddy’s chin resting on his shoulder. “Shh. Listen to me. Listen. You shot Fury. He didn’t die, but that _doesn’t_ mean you failed.” Daddy’s voice goes sharp as Bucky tries to jerk away. “That was a bad mission, okay? Like when they wanted you to kill me. HYDRA told you bad things. You didn’t do anything wrong, and you don’t need to try again. Fury’s alive, and that’s good. That means you were helping us even before you knew it. Before we knew it. Trust me.” 

The asset never fails. But Daddy wouldn’t lie. But his last daddy said he was good when he shot Fury, said he was _perfect_. But Daddy wouldn’t bring Bucky to see a zombie. He wouldn’t. 

Bucky’s head is pounding. His skull feels too tight, like the pressure will force his eyes out. He whimpers, frustrated and hurting and suddenly so tired, but he stops fighting. Daddy doesn’t lie. Bucky Bear agrees with that, and Bucky Bear knows everything. 

“I’m guessing this is the kid Hill talked about,” Nicholas J. Fury says. “’Cause if this is the assassin that nearly did me in, I’m ashamed of myself.” 

“Shut up,” Daddy says. 

At the same time, Tony turns to look at Fury. “And how much does Hill tell you?” 

Fury just shrugs. “Enough.” 

Barney clears his throat, rolling the wheelchair back. Bucky wonders if he’s permanently in that chair, or if his injuries are supposed to get better. It seems rude to ask. “Thrilling as I’m sure your dramatic back stories are—really, I’m no stranger to that sort of thing myself—can we take them back to the apartment? Don’t want Clint and Nat thinking we’ve been abducted by the tracksuit mafia.” 

Fury nods and walks off, with Barney following behind him. Bruce and Tony are standing up as Daddy turns to Bucky. “Ready?” 

He nods, but when he tries to move, his tummy clenches up and he stops. 

“Bucky,” Daddy says. “Ghosts and zombies are just made up. Even if they were real, I wouldn’t let them get you. You know that.” 

“Not that,” Bucky mumbles. 

“What is it?” 

Bucky leans forward as much as he dares to whisper in Daddy’s ear. “Need the bathroom.” Coming face to face with a possible zombie-ghost has made him need it really badly. 

“Oh.” Daddy gathers up the stuffed animals quickly and then stands up. “Okay. Come on, let’s get you there.” 

*

Clint’s coffee table has a candy dish and a bunch of dark little circles all over the wood. Bucky thinks for Christmas this year he should get Clint some coasters. Or maybe something that will pour coffee for him in a way that won’t let it drip down the sides of the mug. 

“Did Maria tell you about Clint?” Bruce asks Fury. Fury’s sitting on the couch again and Bucky is sitting by Daddy’s feet, on the other side of the room. Fury isn’t a zombie-ghost, but Bucky still thinks it wouldn’t be smart to sit down near somebody he tried to kill twice. Most people probably aren’t as forgiving about that as Daddy was. “Or does he have some way to contact you?”

“Hill called me,” Fury says. He hasn’t looked at Bucky since the stairs, but he’s not tense and he doesn’t sound mad. But Fury did spy stuff sometimes. Maybe that’s what he does all the time now. Spies are really good at hiding their feelings. 

“And how often does she call you?” Tony _does_ sound mad. Bucky hadn’t realized Tony cares who Maria’s friends with, but then, whenever he saw them together, they were talking about trial stuff. “How much info did she pass along that didn’t require a visit?” 

“Believe it or not, Stark, I’ve got better things to do than keep tabs on your ass.” Fury shifts on the couch. He’s not in anything close to a defensive position, but Bucky Bear can think of several ways the man could retaliate if Tony attacks him. “Potts is a saint to put up with it. Hill called everyone outside of your clubhouse who’d give a damn that Barton’s hurt. Me, Coulson, that sign-in clerk at the shooting range he’d flirt with when—”

“Coulson?” says Daddy, and there’s a stillness in his voice that Bucky hasn’t heard since the night the asset pressed the edge of a knife to his throat. 

“What do you mean, Coulson?” Tony’s still staring at Fury, but he doesn’t look mad now. He looks very serious, even more than he was at Bucky’s trial or when Bruce came home from a mission as the Hulk still. 

Bucky runs the name over and over in his head, searching for a memory. But there’s nothing, not even a time he can recall someone saying that name. Sometimes he can feel and almost grab onto the wispy, slippery edges of things he used to remember, but he can’t even do that. Bucky thinks that the milkman on his street in Brooklyn might have been Coulson—or Coleman?—but there’s no way that milkman is still alive. Anyway, why would Bucky’s milkman know Maria, and what would he have to do with Clint? 

Bucky Bear doesn’t have any ideas. Red Panda and Bear Widow don’t either. 

Fury’s mouth hangs a little bit open. “He didn’t tell you?” Resting his elbows on his knees, Fury puts his face in his hands as he shakes his head. “The man’s got a fleet of Quinjets at his disposal and he never dropped by to say hey? Didn’t even send an email?” 

“You told us Coulson was dead,” Bruce says. Now _he_ looks angry, and that’s never good. 

“He was.” Fury straightens up. “More dead than I ever was. It’s just that SHIELD had the technology to save him.” 

“So that whole speech, the bloody cards, all of it. Just another lie.” Daddy’s speaking through clenched teeth. His face is white, even his lips, and Bucky’s surprised he hasn’t broken the arms of the chair he’s in, squeezing them that hard. 

Bucky remembers that Monty used to call things bloody, but he doesn’t think it’s the best time to mention it. 

“He was dead when I gave you that pep talk,” Fury says. Bucky doesn’t think he’s trustworthy, and Bucky Bear agrees. “He was dead for days after.” 

“That’s not possible.” Bruce takes a slow breath, eyes closed, after he speaks. He’s breathing on a count of ten, just like he taught Bucky to do whenever Bucky gets upset or mad. Right now, Bruce looks like he’s both those things. “His body would have shut down—the brain damage would be irreversible—”

Fury sighs. “I’m sitting in a room with a man who can more than double his body mass, a man who built a particle accelerator in a day while he was dying—and probably drunk—a man who was frozen for seventy years and never died, a man who flew into war zones with no plane but didn’t get blown to kingdom come, and a science experiment who’s somehow not catatonic after having enough electricity run through his head to power a small country.” He gestures at Barney. “And that guy. Nobody here’s in a position to call anything impossible.” 

“Hey.” Barney rolls his wheelchair to the center of the room. “‘That guy’ is technically the co-owner of this building right now. Clint and I haven’t talked it over, but I’m entitled to that much, wouldn’t you think? ‘That guy’ has no idea what’s going on with your superpowered soap opera, but it’s giving me a headache. So if you want to yell at each other about secrecy or raising the dead or whatever, please take it to the hall. Better yet, take it some other hall. Or outside. I don’t really care.” 

Everybody seems to deflate at that, and for a second they’re all quiet. 

Daddy’s the first to speak. “I’m sorry, Barney. Both for what happened to you and to Clint.” 

Barney waves his hand. “Clint’ll be fine. As soon as he pulls his head out of his ass—” He stops, glances down at Bucky, and clears his throat before he goes on. “As soon as he stops being a jerk and realizes feeling sorry for himself won’t help a thing. He’s always doing this, too embarrassed to ask for help. You’d think it’s ‘cause he’s in a team with gods and superheroes, right? But don’t flatter yourselves—he’s been this way since we were kids. Always heaping the weight of the world on his shoulders and wondering why he’s suffocating.” 

Everything gets quiet again. Bucky thinks he might not like Barney, but Bucky Bear doesn’t seem to have a problem with him, and Bucky Bear’s an excellent judge of character. 

“He’s gone deaf,” Sam says finally. “In a traumatic fashion. It’s natural to have a period of—”

“Not his first time at that rodeo either.” Barney runs both hands through his hair, and the way his fingers move is so familiar that, for a second, Bucky thinks he’s looking at Clint. “He was deaf for a while when we were kids, too. Blunt force trauma. That’s why he knows how to lip read and sign. I stole books outta the library about it to teach him. It wasn’t permanent, so he never became fluent, but—”

“There’s nothing about that in his medical records,” Fury says. Bucky thinks the man’s surprised, though the sunglasses make it hard to tell. 

“Like I said, embarrassed.” 

Then people start talking over each other, but Bucky doesn’t try to follow their words. He’s been practicing signing for Clint, but it’s hard to know what to look at. Some people sign in American Sign Language, which is its own whole language with special rules about how to put sentences together, but some people sign in English. And then there are also people who mix up the two. Bucky isn’t sure what Clint signs, so he tried to study all of them, but it’s confusing, separating the rules. 

And lip reading seems even harder. A lot of sounds look the same, and if a person tries to make it easier by exaggerating their mouth movements, that actually makes it harder. It’s not easy to read people who aren’t speaking their first language, or who are muttering, or who have a speech impediment, and it’s not easy to lip read in dark places, or in places with too much stuff going on. Bucky can’t understand how Clint does it, or why teachers thought it was such a good idea when Daddy and Bucky were little. 

“How did it happen the first time?” Daddy asks, and Bucky presses his hands hard against his ears, staring at Barney. 

“ _Da[d?] hit [something]_ ,” Barney might be saying. “ _Son off a bench.[?]_ ” 

Bucky puts his hands down. He really needs to learn how Clint signs. It would be bad to make Clint read his lips if he has the ability to learn how to sign instead. But he doesn’t know how to sign that question, and he didn’t think to bring any paper. Maybe he can text it. 

Maybe he can ask Tasha, but even if she does know, she’s probably still mad at him. 

Bucky and Tasha were playing Bears when she got the phone call about what happened. In the game, Hawkbear was an evil, mad scientist bear and Bear Widow was an evil, mad lab assistant bear. Bucky Bear had just knocked them both off of the couch, which was also the edge of a ravine, when Tasha’s phone rang and Clint was on the other end, but he didn’t answer anything she said, just talked loud and fast. 

When Tasha hung up, her eyes were shiny and wet. Bucky had asked what was wrong and Tasha hadn’t answered. She just shoved him off the couch too. 

In Bucky’s defense, Hawkbear and Bear Widow had been trying to blow up the universe. 

The grown-ups are still talking. Bucky figures he should listen, since Bucky Bear’s distracted by the candy dish on the coffee table. He wants Bucky to pick up one of the hard little candies inside and throw it at Fury’s head. Just to prove Bucky won’t miss. Bucky doesn’t think that’s the best plan. 

“—Nat’s in there with him, trying to snap him outta this lone gunslinger crap. She and Kate took care of the place while we were at the hospital, made sure nobody went after the tenants—”

“—No legal claim to the building, if he’d told me I could have filed a—”

“What do they want the neighborhood for? If we know who’s paying for all this, then—”

Bucky closes his eyes, resting his head against Bucky Bear again. He’s beginning to think the bear’s right about the candy dish. At least it would give him something to concentrate on. 

“Are you okay, Buck?” Daddy asks, and though he’s speaking softly, everybody else goes quiet. 

Bucky raises his head. All eyes are on him, even though they all came to see Clint. He thinks even Fury’s looking at him, though he can’t be sure because of the sunglasses. 

“You used to look like a pirate,” he says to Fury. The words just slip out. 

Tony laughs. That could be good or bad. 

“I used to have ships,” Fury says. “’Til they got blown up. I figured my wardrobe should change accordingly.” 

“Bucky,” Daddy says. His mouth got all tight and thin when Fury mentioned pirate ships and it isn’t any better now. “If this is too much for you to handle right now, we can—”

The bedroom door opens and Natasha comes out. “Hey.” 

“Hey,” Sam says. Tony, Bruce, and Daddy are all asking if Clint’s okay. 

Natasha sighs. “I’ve seen him worse, but only just. Right after he came out of Loki’s mind control. You know how he gets. Thinking he has to do everything on his own, has to prove his worth since he’s the only one without powers or a suit or Soviet training. He blamed himself when Loki controlled him and he’s blaming himself now.” She rubs at her eye, looking exhausted. Bucky’s never seen her do that when she isn’t seven. 

“Mind you,” Natasha continues, “he’s not blaming himself for failing to reach out before things went to hell. He just thinks that he and Barney should have been able to handle things.” 

“Where was Kate?” Steve asks. 

“LA. Came as soon as she got the news.” Natasha glances toward the window. “She’s out now, gathering intel. Following the money. Whatever Clint needs to go through to cope with this—I don’t think he’ll let it happen until the people in this building are safe.” 

Barney nods. “He always did deal with aggression by breaking stuff.” 

Natasha doesn’t just look tired, but also worried and annoyed. Everybody else’s face matches that, except for the toys, because their expressions don’t change. But Bucky thinks his own face is probably screwed up in confusion. He knows what it’s like to be a failure, to hurt the people you care about and have nothing of value to offer them even when you’re free again. Clint, though, he’s not like that. He helps people all the time. And he’s funny and nice and he has a really soft dog who loves to be petted. Why wouldn’t Clint like himself? 

“Does he want to see us?” Sam asks. 

When Natasha nods, she shrugs at the same time. “He _wants_ to. Whether he’ll admit that or just keep punishing himself...” Trailing off, she looks around the room, her eyes falling on Bucky for the first time since she came out. 

Bucky becomes very focused on staring at the floor. 

But when Natasha talks again, she doesn’t sound mad. “Bucky should see him first.” 

He raises his head so fast that his vision goes black with dizziness for a second. “Me?” 

“Doesn’t matter how pissy Clint’s feeling.” That’s Barney, speaking up before Natasha can explain. “He doesn’t have it in him to sulk around ignoring a kid.” 

Maybe that’s it. Or maybe Bucky can remind Clint what a loser really looks like. 

“You’d cheer him up,” Natasha says. “I know it.” 

Bucky feels Daddy’s hand on his shoulder, gently squeezing. He looks down at Bear Widow. She’s probably really missed Clint. And now everybody’s counting on him. He needs to good. And brave. 

Bucky stands up. Before he walks to the door, he crosses to Natasha, holding out Red Panda. “I, uh, I brought her for you.” 

Natasha stares at him. Beside her, Fury is watching them. Bucky remembers then that Fury is Natasha’s boss. At least, he used to be. For all that Natasha’s training had in common with Bucky’s, none of her handlers ever told her to be a child. The Red Room had no use for children beyond their element of surprise. HYDRA hadn’t used children at all; his first daddy never sent Bucky on missions when he was little. Bucky can’t think of any reason why SHIELD would be different. 

His face goes hot and red. Now he’s embarrassed Natasha in front of her old handler. He’s probably going to get hit again. 

Just as he thinks that, Natasha stands up. Bucky braces himself to get punched, forcing his eyes to stay open. It’s important to see where he’ll get hit. It helps him control his reaction and it’s shameful to close his eyes during punishments. 

But Natasha doesn’t hit him. She doesn’t take Red Panda, either. Instead, Natasha puts her arms around Bucky, drawing him close in a hug. She squeezes hard enough that he can feel the pressure even in his metal arm. “Thank you,” she says as the stiffness starts melting out of Bucky. “I missed her. You too. I’m sorry, Bucky.” 

“It’s ‘kay,” he mumbles as Natasha lets go, handing her Red Panda as he looks at Clint’s door. “Do you need to tell him I’m coming, or—”

“He knows he has visitors. You can go ahead in.” 

Bucky almost knocks when he reaches the door, until he remembers that Clint can’t hear knocking. Very slowly, he pushes the door open. 

Clint doesn’t look good. 

He’s sitting on the bed, and Bucky doesn’t think he’s changed clothes, shaved, or combed his hair in days. He doesn’t have hearing aids—Bucky guesses the wounds are too raw for that right now—and there’s little flecks of what’s probably dried blood on his neck, too low for the doctors who worked on his ears to bother wiping away. 

Lucky was on the bed with Clint, but now he bounds up, wagging his tail and barking gently as he dashes to Bucky. Jumping up, Lucky sniffs at the bears. 

“Hey, Lucky.” Bucky raises his head and makes sure Clint’s meeting his eyes before he says “Hello” as clearly as he can without going too slow or emphasizing too much. He meant to sign it too, but his hands are full of bears. And when he shifts Bear Widow to his other arm so he can make the sign, Clint’s already grunting out a mumbled “hey.” 

Bucky walks toward the bed, careful not to step on Lucky’s paws or anything else. It doesn’t look like Clint’s cleaned his room in a while. There are shoes on the floor, an arrow with a net hanging out of the tip, comics, rolls of tape, and what looks like a DVR with the wires all tangled together. Some of those wires are cut, shiny copper frays poking out of the plastic. 

“Sit down,” Clint mutters, gesturing to the bedspread that Lucky’s already scrambling back up on. Bucky’s not sure if Clint’s so quiet because he can’t hear himself anymore, or if he just doesn’t want to talk. 

There’s a dry erase board on the bed with a purple marker lying on it. It makes Bucky smile. Clint’s smiling too, but it doesn’t look happy. It’s more like the way someone smiles when they’re really tired. Bucky taps on the board, waiting for Clint to look at him before he speaks. “Is that from Natasha?” 

There’s a pause. Maybe Bucky should have written the question on the board. That’s what it’s for, right? But then Clint shakes his head. “It’s from Kate.” 

Bucky’s heard Clint talk about Kate a few times before. She uses a bow like he does. Bucky thought they were friends, but Clint isn’t smiling anymore. He shouldn’t have asked. 

“I brought Bear Widow.” Bucky picks the bear up. He almost sets her in Clint’s lap before he remembers how Sam talked about not treating Clint like he couldn’t take care of himself. Is handing him stuff instead of letting him pick it up rude? Bucky isn’t sure, but he puts the bear on his own lap instead. He doesn’t know how to sign _Do you want to hold her?_ so he just points to the bear and then makes the sign for _Want_ as he asks. 

Clint’s smile this time is still tired but a lot brighter. “Yeah,” he says, signing _Yes_ at the same time, and Bucky passes Bear Widow to him. He smiles at the bear, squeezing her foot like Bucky does with Bucky Bear when he needs to be sure of his friend’s presence. “Thanks, Bucky.” 

Bucky reaches into his pocket and takes out a card he made. On the front, there’s a picture he found online of a red panda with a coffee mug. Inside, he typed ‘Feel better soon. Love you’ in a special font that JARVIS downloaded. It uses fingerspelling symbols instead of English letters. Bucky memorized the whole signed alphabet, but it would take forever to communicate just with that. 

After Clint reads the card, he doesn’t say anything. There’s a worried flutter through Bucky’s stomach. Maybe Clint doesn’t know that alphabet, just signs and lip reading. Maybe it’s insulting. It’s not like Clint can’t read English. Why did Bucky think it would be a good idea to give him a card in—

Then Clint’s giving him a hug. It’s a really strong hug, and Bear Widow’s almost squished between them. Bucky tilts his head to the side to be sure he won’t accidentally brush against Clint’s ear. That might hurt him. And also Clint’s sort-of beard is scratchy. 

“Thank you,” Clint says. His voice is a little louder now. Bucky starts to say ‘You’re welcome,’ but then he remembers that Clint can’t see him to hear him. He can’t move to speak either, since Clint’s holding so tight. His hand is rubbing up and down Bucky’s back. “I missed you, Bucky.” 

In the corner of his eye, Bucky sees Lucky’s paws up on Clint’s other shoulder, and then Clint’s squirming away. Lucky’s licking his face. 

Bucky isn’t sure if he should giggle or move Lucky—dog spit probably isn’t good for Clint’s ears—but then Clint’s laughing, so Bucky’s laughing too. 

“That’s _not_ how you join a hug,” Clint says. He sounds stern, but he’s smiling and scratching behind Lucky’s ears, dodging when the dog tries to lick him again. The dodge and Lucky’s paws on his shoulder put him off kilter and he falls back against the pillows, still laughing and shielding his face with his arms when Lucky stands on his chest. 

Bucky decides to set Bucky Bear on the floor where he’ll be safe from any dog-licking for now, at least. Bucky Bear really doesn’t like it when Lucky tries to love on him. But Bucky doesn’t mind it, so he whistles quietly, and then Lucky’s clambering into his lap instead. 

Clint sits back up as Bucky squirms to avoid getting whacked in the face with Lucky’s very waggy tail. Clint’s rubbing at his forehead like he has a headache, and Bucky frowns. “Is your balance okay?” Ear injuries can mess that up. Once on a mission, one of the asset’s handlers got hit in the head and kept falling over when he tried to walk. There was blood trickling out of his ear, and he said everything was spinning. 

Clint’s looking at Bucky, but he seems to be more thinking than seeing. He shrugs, but his face tinges red when he does. Bucky gets the sense that Clint didn’t understand him. 

“Is your balance okay?” he says again, but Clint isn’t looking at him now, just down at the bed. 

Bucky taps on the dry erase board, being sure to do it in Clint’s view, and picks it up when Clint nods. 

_Is your balanced messed up?_ Bucky writes as neatly as he can, which isn’t easy when his lap is full of a snuggly dog. It takes him a minute to be sure he’s got balance spelled right. 

When he holds up the board, Clint shakes his head. “No vertigo. Just a whole lot of nothing.” 

Bucky almost says ‘That’s good,’ but Clint doesn’t look like he thinks it’s very good at all. And Bucky can understand that; he gets to live in the tower and be around people who love him and have all kinds of bears, but sometimes it’s so hard to be happy about all of that when he’s having panic attacks or nightmares, or getting sick to his stomach just because he ate a normal meal. _Sorry,_ Bucky signs, making an A with his hand and rubbing it in circles against his chest. 

“It’s not your fault,” Clint says. 

“I’m still sorry.” Most things are Bucky’s fault, but he can apologize even when they aren’t. Daddy apologizes all the time for when Bucky fell off the train, and that wasn’t his fault at all. 

“You don’t need to worry.” 

How can Bucky keep from worrying? Clint got really hurt. If the clown had stabbed harder, he probably could have hit Clint’s brain. And then Barney got shot and both of them were hurt and alone because none of the Avengers knew to help them, and now Clint’s deaf and Bucky knows Clint really likes music because of the time he made Bucky Bear dance along to “Stayin’ Alive” and then Bucky Bear tried to eat Clint, and the building still isn’t safe and there are so many things to worry about that Bucky can hardly breathe, and—

“Bucky.” Clint’s trying to hug him, but with Lucky and the board and Bear Widow between them, it doesn’t really work. “It’s _okay_. I know this looks bad, but that’s what Avengers do, right? Fix problems? It’ll be fine.” 

But Clint doesn’t look like he believes it. 

Bucky turns the board back to face him again, erasing the last question with his hand. His fingers come away stained purple. _When this place is safe, will you come back to the tower?_

“I—” The look on Clint’s face seems familiar, although Bucky knows he’d never seen it before. But it looks the way Bucky felt when he knew what answer a grown-up wanted but couldn’t give it to them. “I don’t know.” 

_The bears miss you,_ Bucky writes. He’s being whiny, guilting, and manipulative, he knows that, but he can’t help it. The tower won’t be the same without Clint, and Tasha will be sad all the time. Bucky knows the people here need Clint too, but he took care of them before without living here every day. Can’t he stay at the tower at least some of the time now?

“I miss them,” Clint says, and on the floor, Bucky Bear seems to brighten up. He stopped being mad about Lucky and deely-boppers and all the other weird stuff Clint’s done once he heard that Clint got hurt. And Bucky Bear always likes it when people like him. “But I messed up, Bucky. Real bad.” 

“I tried to kill Daddy and Natasha before I came to the tower,” Bucky says. 

There’s a pause, and Bucky’s about to write that down when Clint speaks. “That’s different, kid. You didn’t have a choice. I did, and I chose to be an idiot.” 

“Tony does lots of stupid stuff.” Like the Mentos and Diet Coke, or the time he got Bucky stuck to a magnet, or Pepper’s last birthday when Tony got her a trip around the world but didn’t think to let her pick the dates. Or the time he let Bucky watch part of _Terminator_ before Sam decided they should color instead. 

“Tony’s Iron Man. I never was.” 

Bucky doesn’t say that Natasha doesn’t have special powers either, and she still nearly killed the Winter Soldier in a fight. He doesn’t say that he was the asset when he was missing an arm, because he has a really fancy replacement. And he doesn’t mention the mission to Belarus two months ago where Clint saved a whole convent all by himself. _It’s okay to be sad_ , his doctors always say. 

“You could have asked for help,” Bucky says, because it’s okay to be sad but you’re also supposed to plan to make things better. And staying in this room alone, feeling stupid, isn’t going to keep anyone safe when the clown comes back. “Why didn’t you?” 

“Remember the time I tried to hold your hand when we crossed the street and you got so mad?” Clint asks. 

Bucky remembers that. He’d been grown up, and grown-ups don’t need help to cross the street. He had been mad and embarrassed, and so he and Bucky Bear stomped off on their own. 

Maybe that’s how Clint feels. He doesn’t have an Iron Man suit or a serum. He can’t fly, he didn’t train in the Red Room, and he can’t get all green and big. But Bucky never thought any of that _bothered_ him. Why would it? He’s the best archer ever. He has an arrow that works like a boomerang. And he stitched Bucky Bear’s arm and bought Tasha Red Panda and knows how to juggle. Clint is cool.

Bucky doesn’t say any of that, though. Instead, he takes out his phone and looks up Youtube. He’s not allowed to Google himself, but he can Google the Avengers, so he types “Hawkeye” into the search bar and scrolls through the videos until he finds the one he wants. 

“Bucky,” Clint protests when Bucky shoves the phone toward him. “I won’t be able to hear—”

He doesn’t need to, though, because the only sounds in the video are explosions and yelling. It’s a video someone took on their camera during the Battle of New York. Bucky isn’t sure why they were using their camera phone instead of running away, but that’s not important right now. In the video, Clint is helping kids evacuate from a bus. It’s very heroic and Avengery. 

It’s also really short, though, so as soon as it ends, Bucky takes his phone back and finds a Hawkeye fan site. There are archers talking about Clint’s technique, people posting photographs and drawing pictures, knitting patterns, costumes, and even cocktail recipes named after Clint. Bucky doesn’t drink, but maybe someone can make a cocktail for Clint when he comes home. 

He hands the phone back to Clint, then squirms to retrieve Bucky Bear without knocking Lucky off of his lap. Clint likes to play with Bucky Bear, and Bucky knows the bear was worried, so he puts him beside Bear Widow on Clint’s lap and uses the board to keep Lucky from licking all over Bucky Bear. 

_You’re an Avenger,_ Bucky writes, since the board is right there. _You help people all the time and you have really cool_ —Bucky starts to write arrows, but he erases that. Clint probably doesn’t want to hear about arrows right after he got stabbed with them. But Bucky isn’t sure how to spell ‘equipment.’ _You have really cool hero stuff and purple is a great color. But Avengers need help too. Daddy needed a whole team of people without powers in the war._

Lucky almost gets Bucky Bear when Bucky lifts the board to turn it around, but Clint moves him out of the way and Bucky distracts the dog with a lot of petting. 

“I know,” Clint says. He sighs, setting Bucky’s phone on the bed. He looks so tired again. “This is what I do, Bucky. Something’s going good, and I mess it up.” 

“Let people help you now,” Bucky says. 

He keeps the cap off of the marker, ready to argue. Clint will say that he has to take care of himself. That’s he’s a burden and the Avengers shouldn’t need to waste their time watching out for him. He might talk about how Loki made him attack his friends, how he’s not worthy of their help now. Bucky doesn’t know what he’ll say to any of that, but he has to try. He’s practically the only one here who isn’t an Avenger or a SHIELD agent. He might be the one person who won’t seem like he’s talking down to Clint or humoring him. Bucky needs to be able to help. 

But Clint just stares at him, confused, like he looks when he’s spilled his coffee without realizing it. “I am,” he says. 

Bucky stops halfway through rubbing his hand to erase the words on the board. _What?_ he signs. 

“That’s why you’re all here.” Clint smiles. On his lap, Bucky Bear is frowning at being kept out of the loop, and Bear Widow looks as confused as Bucky feels. “I didn’t call everyone over here to gawk at the deaf guy and socialize with my dog. You know?” 

Bucky just stares. 

“I thought that would make you happy.” Clint tilts his head. “Did you want to yell at me? You can. Not like I’ll get a headache.” 

_They came to help you plan a fight?_ Bucky writes slowly, careful to keep his hand steady. Nobody told _him_ that. They said this was a visit to help Clint feel better. It’s not like Bucky doesn’t know the Avengers go on missions. No one ever hides that, so why wouldn’t they tell him this? Did they think he would panic now that Clint got hurt? This isn’t the first time anybody got hurt. Daddy broke his wrist on one mission. Tony got a concussion. 

It’s not _fair_. Bucky used to go on missions all the time. And now they can’t even tell him about them? 

“No, they came to see me.” Clint doesn’t look confused anymore. He looks worried. Bucky’s feelings must show all over his face, like a whiny baby. Clint has enough to worry about right now. Bucky looks down, not seeing Lucky panting happily on his lap. Not seeing anything except his vision getting blurry. He can’t cry here. That would be so bad. 

Clint squeezes his foot. It kind of tickles, but not enough for Bucky to move. “Hey,” Clint says. “Nobody’s planned anything yet, Bucky. I haven’t even asked. That’s not the kind of thing you can work out over the phone, you know? Especially when I can’t hear anybody on the other end.” 

“Tony could make a phone that makes text,” Bucky whispers, except he forgets to raise his head, so Clint can’t hear him. And then Bucky’s sniffling, wiping tears away from his eyes. He’s not even sure _why_ he’s crying; nobody’s actually keeping anything from him. 

“Hey.” Clint moves the board off to the side, hugging onto Bucky again. He hugs really tight this time, so much that Lucky wriggles away onto the floor. “Aww, Bucky, no. Don’t cry. Everyone’s going to be fine.” 

_It’s not that_ , Bucky doesn’t say. Clint couldn’t hear him if he did, and he still doesn’t know why he’s upset anyway. He just nods, which Clint can feel, since Bucky’s head is against his shoulder. 

“C’mon, you can’t cry. If anybody sees you crying, that’s another thing they’ll yell at me for, right?” 

Another nod, and then Bucky pulls away, wiping at his nose. He starts to sign _Sorry_ again, but Clint reaches out and grabs his hand. 

“You don’t need to be sorry.” Clint squeezes Bucky’s fingers, but not in a punishing way. “For anything. Here, you wanna hold Bucky Bear?”

“Yeah.” 

He expected Bucky Bear to be planning strategies against the clown, but when he cuddles up to Bucky Bear, all the bear can talk about is Natasha. 

Natasha spent the week with Clint. She called everybody to come over. But Natasha was out there talking about how stubborn Clint is, and that’s why she had Bucky go in first. 

_Does Natasha know what you’re planning?_

Clint gives Bucky the sort of smile that he usually has after he makes a pun but before Natasha smacks him for it. “Nope.” 

Bucky’s eyes go wide. “She’s going to be mad.” 

Bucky Bear agrees. 

“She’s been acting like I’m made of glass all week.” Clint shrugs. “She wasn’t even this fussy after Loki got me. Maybe because we had to fight aliens right after. If this gets her to hit me again? Good.” 

“But I don’t want you to get hit!” 

That comes out as a fast yelp, so Bucky’s not sure if Clint understood it. Either way, Clint’s hand is on his shoulder and he’s shushing Bucky before Bucky can start signing _No, no, no!_

“Bucky. _Relax_ , Bucky. I know what I’m doing, just like always. I don’t make bad plans.” 

Bucky doesn’t even have to sign anything; his face says it for him. 

“Okay, fine. I make bad plans. Really bad plans. Over and over. And there are consequences.” Clint waves at his ears. “But you know what?” He leans closer. 

Lucky pops up at the side of the bed and carries Bear Widow away. She doesn’t seem to mind, and Clint’s still talking, so Bucky doesn’t intervene, although Bucky Bear’s loudly planning a rescue. 

“I get back up,” Clint says. “Every time. I might be a punching bag—a pincushion—but nothing’s kept me down, and I always come back swinging. Barney always says fighting’s easy. Whoever can hurt and get hurt the most for the longest wins. And I can do that. You know that.” 

Bucky doesn’t say fighting’s bad. He doesn’t say he doesn’t want Clint to get hurt. He just nods. 

“And when I can’t be that guy, well.” Clint smiles in a way Bucky can’t read. If only faces could be as clear as signs. “That’s what friends are for, right? Once I stop being such a jerk and ask them.” 

“We’ll help,” Bucky says. He knows everyone will. “Daddy and Natasha and me and Bucky Bear—”

“You are not fighting,” Clint says immediately. “Steve would string me up. And the bears have to make sure the tower’s safe, okay? We can’t leave Pepper and JARVIS all alone. Besides, uh, at the circus—the clowns. At the circus. They were in charge of the bears, yeah. So best not to have bears fight a clown.” 

Bucky doesn’t want to leave Pepper alone. He doesn’t really want to hurt anyone either. But his eyes are still stinging. If he could just _help_ —

“Hey.” Clint’s tugging on the cuff of Bucky’s sleeve, getting him to look back up. “There _is_ something I need you to do for me, okay? It’s really important.” 

Bucky sits straighter, nodding. He wipes his hand at his nose again. “Okay.” 

“I have to go out there and ask everybody to help me. But this isn’t just an Avengers’ fight.” Clint spreads his arms wide, gesturing around the room. Bucky doesn’t get it, unless Clint’s saying it’s also a fight for his laundry. 

“I’m not the only one in this apartment, Bucky. You know how we’re a big family at the tower? This is my family too. And I have to let them know what’s up, see if they want to clear out until this blows over, or if any of them want to help us. So while I’m talking to everyone in the living room, can you knock on all the doors and tell everybody there’s a meeting on the roof in five minutes?” 

Bucky almost nods, until he sees his left hand in the corner of his eye. He didn’t bring a glove. Not even having to ask the question, he raises that hand up between them. 

“They know I’m an Avenger, Bucky. And when your trial was happening, I talked to them. They know you’re my friend.” 

The trial. Bucky’s face is hot, but Clint _needs_ him. He can’t let Clint down. “Okay.” 

When Bucky opens the bedroom door, everyone in the living room turns to face him. His face is probably still red, but there’s no time to worry about that. He has five minutes and a lot of people to tell about this meeting. 

“Hey Bucky,” Daddy says. “How’s Clint?” 

“I have to knock on doors,” Bucky says, making a beeline for the hall. He does stop at the candy dish, but that’s because he gets nervous talking to strangers and Bucky Bear doesn’t like it when Bucky gets fidgety and tugs on his coat buttons. So the candies are necessary, really. 

He sees Daddy start to get up out of the corner of his eye, but then he hears Clint’s voice from the bedroom doorway. “Hey guys, we need to talk.” And then everyone’s looking at him instead of Bucky. 

There are a lot more people in the building than Bucky expected. A woman with pink hair, a man with an afro, a redheaded lady with a baby, an old lady with a puppy, a very old man, a man with long hair and glasses, and a lady with two sons. One looks older than Bucky. The other might be his age. 

“Nice bear!” says the younger boy. 

“Thank you,” Bucky mumbles, shuffling his feet. 

“Aren’t you the Winter Soldier?” asks the older boy. 

“...Not really.” 

“But you have a metal hand!” 

“I bet you can crush soda cans even when they’re full, huh?” 

“Can you pop it off? Can it move on its own?” 

“Would you two stop talking the poor man’s ear off?” their mother asks. “Mr. Barnes, what is it that you want to tell us?” 

“There’s a meeting on the roof in five minutes,” Bucky says. “Clint wanted me to say.” 

When he turns around to go get Happy from his spot guarding the front door, he can hear one of the boys, loud and excited. “Mr. Barnes, see? Told ya he’s the Winter Soldier.” 

“Mr. Clint’s bringing out the big guns,” the other boy says. 

All of the Avengers are on the roof when Bucky gets there. Clint’s in a suit now, still making the knot in his tie. His hair looks sort of maybe combed, and Bucky doesn’t understand how he changed clothes so fast unless he did it while he was talking to everybody about his plan. That seems like a Clint thing to do. 

There’s a red mark on Clint’s forehead and nose in the shape of a handprint. Natasha looks really satisfied. Bucky shouldn’t laugh at that—hitting is wrong, and Clint’s been having a bad time—but he can’t help it. Anyway, he probably just talked to about thirty strangers and he’s really tired and he’s earned at least a giggle. 

Some of the tenants are already on the roof too, talking to all of the Avengers. Bucky finds Daddy, who’s talking to the pink-haired lady, and squeezes onto his hand. 

“Hey, Buck.” Steve puts his arm over Bucky’s shoulders, looking between him and the woman. “I guess you two have already met?” 

Bucky nods. Daddy’s going back to the grown-up conversation, so Bucky looks around. 

Fury is at a corner of the roof, talking to the old man. 

Bucky can’t help it. Slowly, he slides his hand out of Daddy’s and takes a couple steps back. The candies are in his pocket, and he slides one out. He thinks it’s butterscotch. 

Bucky Bear says to do it, and Bucky Bear’s always right, so Bucky readies, aims, and flicks his wrist while snapping the candy toward Fury. 

It hits him right between the eyes. It didn’t break anything; Bucky made sure not to put that much force behind it. He just wanted to make a point, for Bucky Bear. He tries to look very innocent, but he can see Fury making his way over, probably to grab Bucky’s ear and—

“Hey,” Clint says. He’s standing on top of something, maybe an air conditioning unit. Everybody goes quiet, turning to face him. “So. Uh. We need to talk. I’m deaf. They...they deafened me.” 

There’s a murmur through the crowd. 

“So I’m going to sign, and Barney will translate,” Clint continues. “It’ll be okay. We’ll be okay. Okay?”

 _Okay,_ Bucky thinks. Clint starts moving his hands. The motions aren’t very smooth, probably because Clint hasn’t practiced since he was little, and he doesn’t change his facial expressions much like all the guides Bucky’s read say you’re supposed to, but Bucky can’t look away. 

It’s like when he used to color outside the lines in the coloring books and get so upset, and his last daddy said it didn’t matter. Just knowing how hard he tried and how nicely he meant it made up for any mistakes. 

Clint’s trying really hard. And he’ll make sure everything is okay. Bucky’s sure of it. 

**Author's Note:**

> The drawstring of Clint's pants breaking is a reference to [_Hawkeye_ #15,](https://p.dreamwidth.org/7e1ddc5918d1/abload.de/img/1iyups.png) in which his pants do just that while he's surrounded by gun-toting mafiosos. Clint's words to the crowd and his mention of what Barney says about fighting are near verbatim from _Hawkeye_ #19.
> 
> Between the last update of the series and this one, there have been three amazingly wonderful fics inspired by this series that you should definitely check out:
> 
> [More common in children aged 3 to 12.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4083331) by [VoiceOfNurse](http://archiveofourown.org/users/VoiceOfNurse/pseuds/VoiceOfNurse)
> 
> [Good Night, Sleep Tight (Don't Let the Plot Bunnies Bite)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4195374) by [WhatEvenAmI](http://archiveofourown.org/users/WhatEvenAmI/pseuds/WhatEvenAmI)
> 
> [Monster Theory](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4157574) by [vironsusi](http://archiveofourown.org/users/vironsusi/pseuds/vironsusi)
> 
> As always, you can check me out on [Tumblr.](http://lauralot89.tumblr.com)


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